The last time I spoke with University of Minnesota volleyball coach Keegan Cook at length, back in October at Maturi Pavilion, he was dealing with the worst run of injuries in his coaching career. The Gophers had lost four starters for the season, forcing Cook to elevate four freshmen to join redshirt freshman setter Stella Swenson in the starting lineup.
Still, he seemed remarkably upbeat, ending our conversation with, “Stay tuned.”
Winning with five freshmen starters in the rugged Big Ten, the best volleyball conference in the country, seemed a lot to ask of any team, even one with Minnesota’s pedigree. But Cook, now in his third season at Minnesota after a successful eight-year run at the University of Washington, knew what he had in talent, and knew he had time. He hoped everything would come together in time for the NCAA tournament.
Cook was right, as evidenced last weekend. The Gophers (24-9, 12-8 in the Big Ten) finished with a high enough Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) to earn hosting rights for NCAA tournament first- and second-round matches for the first time since 2022, former coach Hugh McCutcheon’s last season.
The Gophers then won both matches in straight sets at the raucous Pav, obliterating overmatched Fairfield, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion, on Friday, then dispatching more formidable Iowa State from the Big 12 on Saturday. That sent Minnesota to the NCAA Regionals for the first time since Cook succeeded McCutcheon.
“It didn’t feel like a reach,” Cook said. “This program, you know what it is.”
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It’s one with an expectation of excellence, going back to the 1970s. That accelerated when the late Mike Hebert took the Gophers to back-to-back NCAA Final Fours in 2003-04. McCutcheon maintained that high level, guiding the Gophers to ten regionals and three Final Fours in 11 seasons. Gopher volleyball has never won an NCAA championship, but contending for one remains the standard.
“The real fun, I think, starts in the regional round,” Cook said. “You have a chance to become more than you’ve ever been in those regional rounds.
“And for our young players, it was important for me to get them there to see what that feels like early in their career. Because this is a program that’s continuing to build and get back to that space where you’re in Regional finals and going to the Final Four. Getting this young freshman class back there so they can feel it and taste it was a big goal for us.”
It helped that All-Big Ten first teamer Julia Hanson, a 6-foot-1 senior outside hitter and a spot player on McCutcheon’s final team, remained healthy and effective all season. The Gophers are hard to beat when Hanson, from Savage, gets rolling, and Hanson was unstoppable all weekend.
After 13 kills with a .522 hitting percentage against Fairfield, Hanson was even better against Iowa State (23-8), which beat four ranked teams while amassing its highest victory total since 2017. Hanson finished with 23 kills, tying her second-best total of the season. Eleven came in the first set alone, seven on the Gophers’ first 14 points. For the weekend, she hit an absurd .500; anything above .300 is considered exceptional.
“She can elevate like no other,” said Iowa State outside hitter Maya Duckworth. “That girl gets up. She just hit balls over us. Can’t do nothing about that. Kudos to her, because she’s an amazing outside.”
Hansen had plenty of help. Swenson, a Gophers setting legacy — older sister Samantha Seliger-Swenson was a four-time All-American and the Big Ten Player of the Year as a senior in 2018 — matured into her role, making all-conference second team and finishing the weekend with 66 assists and no errors. Swenson, from Minnetonka, said it took time to learn where all her hitters liked the ball, especially early on, when the lineup changed almost nightly.
“The fact that I found those connections and can set Julia blindfolded is huge for our team,” a hoarse Swenson said after the Iowa State match. “I love setting every one of my hitters, and I love putting them in good situations. That’s one of my favorite things, when they smile after getting a big rip, and then they credit me. That feels great, even though it was mostly them.”
Cook felt things really came together the last month with the development of freshman outside Kelly Kinney, giving the Gophers an additional hitting option besides Hanson and freshman lefty opposite Carly Gilk of Brooklyn Park. By then, freshmen libero McKenna Garr of Rush City (3.35 digs per set) and middle Jordan Taylor (1.24 blocks per set) were already established. Senior middle blocker Lourdes Myers, a transfer from Purdue, provided steadiness at the net. Better overall defense helped as well.
“They kind of came on line one by one, and they found their place and they found their role,” Cook said. “I knew some of our more experienced players would carry us through a lot of matches while the young players were coming up to speed.
“We saw it kind of happen piece by piece. The last month, the last couple of pieces came on line, and I felt like this team was ready to try to do something.”
McCutcheon was known for his holistic approach, developing people, not just volleyball players. The thinking was, if you develop the whole person and the entire group cares about each other, winning follows. Cook brought a similar approach with a slightly different style.
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The “whole person” part manifested even before the Gophers took the court Friday night, when several players came out early and sat behind the baseline cheering on friends from St. Thomas in its first-round match against the Cyclones. They knew each other from the Minnesota club circuit, and Tommies junior setter Morgan Kealy said she heard them going back to serve.
Early-arriving Gopher fans likewise rooted on the Tommies (21-10), the surprise Summit League champions who qualified for their first NCAA Tournament since transitioning from Division III. A Summit League team hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament match since 1997, but the unfazed Tommies nearly pulled it off, taking Iowa State to five sets before losing the decider, 15-8.
“We could feel the love coming from the stands,” said longtime St. Thomas Coach Thanh Pham.
Overall, it’s been another banner year for volleyball in Minnesota. Besides the Gophers and Tommies, nine-time Division II national champion Concordia-St. Paul advanced to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight in Sioux Falls, S.D., which begins Thursday.
Next up for the Gophers: Top regional seed Pittsburgh (28-4), on the road Thursday night. Upsetting the Panthers may be too great a task for this young team, but what about next season? All four injured Gophers plan to return, and if Cook can keep this group together — no sure thing with the transfer portal — greater success may lie ahead. There’s that standard, remember.
“We talked about going from good to great this year,” Cook said, “and I think we’ve taken that step.”
